The Evaluation of the Local Elections in Turkey: Towards a More Cooperative Government?

The Turkish local elections took place last Sunday. Before jumping into evaluations and the possible implications for Turkish domestic and foreign policies voiced by experts, we should have a look at the percentages obtained by the leading party, the Justice and Development Party, and by opposition parties in this recent election;  we should also compare the results with the previous general election.

The overall JDP votes slightly diminished compared with the previous general election. PM Erdogan's party obtained only 40% of the vote whereas this percentage was 47 in 2007. Votes for the right-wing party, the Nationalist Movement Party remained the same at 14%; the secularist party in the opposition, the Republican People's Party increased its share from 20 to 28%. While the overall votes of the JDP decreased, it was still successful in winning in Istanbul and Ankara. In addition to these, although the Democratic Turkey Party obtained the same percentage of 5 in this election, it was successful in increasing its number of mayoralties from 5 to 8 in the south-eastern part of Turkey towards which the first reaction came after days from the General Staff. The Brigadier General who is the head of the Communication Department of the General Staff stated that it was not possible to make an evaluation regarding the consequences of the election, yet added that this situation was not an obstacle to think about the causes of the consequences of this election, especially in the south-eastern part of Anatolia.

There has been much commentary on the elections this week. Some were arguing consequences of the decrease of the JDP votes and some were pointing out the increasing effects of the Democratic Turkey Party in Turkish politics. However, for me, the most significant point was the incomprehensible coolness of the representatives who were responsible from the elections when there were some speculations that many votes of the opposition parties were stolen and buried during elections. Even during on election day, many stamped voting papers were found discarded around various neighbourhoods in many cities. We cannot blame anyone for having planned and financed this as we have no clue about who were behind it but I believe that these kind of things are serious enough to immediately rerun the elections, regardless of who would gain and who would lose.

PM Erdogan has stated that the result did not satisfy him as he had been expecting more than the overall votes he obtained in the previous general election, but some experts believe that this may change the unilateral attitudes of the JDP towards a more respectful dialogue with opposition parties and the public, especially in the media. In light of this, there are still question marks in terms of the JDP's next decisions on critical points such as: the ongoing surveillance operations in respect of the continuing Ergenekon case; the Kurdish thaw, especially in terms of its relations with the Democratic Turkey Party (as Erdogan has been accusing the Democratic Turkey Party of being the political arm of the terrorist/separatist group, PKK); its dialogue with critical media organizations and with the army;  and so on... As for Turkey's foreign policy, I do agree with many scholars that this result is going to shake the 'trouble-making guy' image of PM Erdogan after his Davos walkout and the government is going to feel more pressure to pay attention to the EU engagement process. Ironically however, PM Erdogan can also strengthen his 'hero' image after the Davos Summit by playing his cards right due to his indirect involvement in the Syrian-Israeli dialogue process. While serious diplomatic efforts have been coming from the US President on the Iranian issue, and while the Palestinian-Israeli peace process is stuck for the time being, the international consensus is warming towards a possible Syrian-Israeli peace negotiation, with Turkey in a mediation role. This is also supported by the US. On the other hand, PM Erdogan is expected to normalize and balance his relations with the various parties in the Middle East. State policy as applied by his predecessors has included harsher warnings against Hamas and the strengthening of the Israeli-Turkish relations.

It looks likely that the election will bring more pluralist policies both in the domestic and in the foreign policies. While the 'heroic' walkout in Davos does not seem to have helped Erdogan increase his votes in the recent election, at least not to the extent he may have expected; his new foreign and domestic policies are likely to be stable and based on more tolerant approaches towards opposition parties and on the less controversial EU-engagement track (without ignoring the opportunities of the Syrian-Israeli dialogue process), before core topics regarding foreign policy, security and domestic politics will have been opened in prior to the next general elections.